


A Fall

by Judas_is_a_Carrot_Top



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, References to Depression, References to suicidal ideation, references to Frozen Teardrop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 06:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17381591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judas_is_a_Carrot_Top/pseuds/Judas_is_a_Carrot_Top
Summary: Trowa Barton ruminates on the nature of love.





	A Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains a minor reference to Frozen Teardrop but otherwise deviates from "canon" it re: Mariemeia's parentage.

“He sent a letter,” Leia says as soon Trowa enters the nursery and its fug of baby powder, infant formula, and dirty diapers. Leia, needing fresh air, sits in the rocker by the window. The aforementioned letter is in her hand.

“Oh? How old-fashioned of him.”

“I know. Maybe he was hoping it would get lost in transit.”

“So what does he want?”

The letter is from Treize Khushrenada. Therefore it is very likely that the letter contains a request- no, a demand. No, a command.

Leia hands the letter to him. He reads it aloud, in a high-pitched parody of the Khushrenada boy’s cultured accent:

“'It would honor me greatly if you will name the baby Angelina, after my mother.’” He looks up from the letter to see his sister laughing silently. “Really? ‘Mariemeia Angelina Barton Khushrenada?’ That's a lot of syllables for such a li’l tyke.”

“I suppose it’s not such an unreasonable request. Half of her did come from him, after all. He’s willing to admit that much.”

Leia laughs again. Barely seventeen, puppy fat still softens and sweetens the contours of her face so that her look of bitterness, quickly glimpsed, seems so jarring to Trowa.

Barely seventeen, and Leia no longer believes in love. She walks over to the frilly Moses basket where the baby lies quietly awake. Mariemeia, named after her maternal grandmother, is only a few weeks old and yet she is already so well behaved. Leia picks up Mariemeia and holds the child tightly to her chest. She nuzzles the top of the child’s head, mussing the dark red hair. Trowa remembers carrying Leia in the same fashion so many years ago. He remembers, even more keenly, his terror that he might drop Leia. That terror is still there, years and years later.

Their mother had died when Leia was only a few months old. It was ovarian cancer, and with its treatment deferred to allow for Leia’s birth, horribly painful and swift. When their mother died Trowa was only two months past ten, but Leia became his responsibility. In grief, or rage, Trowa could not tell, their father had practically abandoned Leia. Trowa was the one who taught her how to tie her shoes and make paper planes, and he was the one who carried her around. Now he has dropped her, he has dropped her.

Leia’s face is shiny and her hair is lank. She is still in her milk-stained pajamas, even though it is past one o’clock in the afternoon. Trowa wants to yell at her, tell her to fix herself up for goodness’ sake, even if she is home all day.

All of a sudden, Leia says, in a voice full of grief, “What have I done?”

“Nothing unfixable,” he says, trying to soothe her.

“You think otherwise,” Leia says, and again that look of bitterness.

It is true. He does think otherwise. She has bitterly disappointed him. Perhaps if Mariemeia had been a boy, perhaps his disappointment and their father’s rage would have been assuaged. Perhaps the Khushrenada boy would have even married her, to get his heir. But the sad actuality is that little Mariemeia is a girl, and Trowa cannot help but love the poor little thing out of the excess of his pity.

Leia gently sets the baby down in the crib. She is silent, far too silent, and Trowa wants to say, “Do you remember Eisenberg’s youngest son? He was set on marrying you. He had already gone to Father to make the arrangements. That Khushrenada boy didn’t even love you and you said you didn’t love him. What are you going to do now, now that Mariemeia’s here?” but he does not, for it is cruel of him to even mention impossibilities.

“I can always leave,” Leia says at last, running a finger over Mariemeia’s face.

“Leave?”

“This world.”

It is not her words or the implicit threat behind them that terrifies Trowa, but the gentle solemnity with which she says them.

“Oh Leia- no, never that. Mariemeia’s here. Never say that. We love you.”

“You love me because you have no choice,” she says. “And when Mariemeia grows up she will love me because she won’t have a choice.”

“Does it matter, if you are loved?”

He knows that Leia thinks that it does, it does, but she does not say so. She will also not say she knows that sometimes love is the excess of forgiveness. What else can he do but forgive his sister for the ruin she has made of her life?

“He’s a kind man, if selfish,” she says suddenly, and the grief and reproach in her voice almost unman him.

He holds up the letter and shakes the wrinkles out. He begins to fold it into a paper plane. The letter is written on a piece of stationary too short and thin but it does. The sight of paper planes had always cheered up Leia, as a child, and even as he folds the paper she smiles.

He launches the paper plane. It makes a short circuit of the nursery, gliding and dipping. It stays aloft for a moment more before a caprice of the breeze sends it tumbling back to earth, for it is only paper after all.


End file.
